Getting to the Roots of Your Family - RootsWeb - Ancestry.com

• http://www.gottschee.org/ - Gottscheer Heritage and Genealogy Association
• http://wwwu.uni-klu.ac.at/hleustik/gottschee/ - Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Gottscheer
Landsmannschaften
• http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9479/deu3.html - German minorities in former Yugoslavia;
lists of town names, links to other web sites
• http://www.maxpages.com/ourlostfamily/Yugoslavia - list of archive addresses
• http://www.genealogienetz.de/reg/ESE/dsslawon.html - general resource page for Germans in
Slavonia.
CONGRESS POLAND
This country was created at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and referred to the Kingdom of Poland at
that time. In 1831 the area was integrated into the Russian Empire. In 1867 the name was changed to
Weichselland. U.S. records often refer to it as Russian Poland.
Helpful web sites:
• http://sggee.org/- resources include maps, village and parish lists with lists of available records
[with FHL film numbers], record indexes
• http://www.upstreamvistula.org/ Lots of historical material, pictures, maps, parish and cemetery
information
VOLHYNIA
Germans began settling in Volhynia in the late 18th Century, but most actually arrived in the 1860s and
later. Many came from Congress Poland or Western Galicia., where the available farm land had
become too crowded. By the early 1900s many Volhynian Germans emigrated back to Germany or to
North America.
Helpful web sites:
• http://www.odessa3.org/ - Odessa Digital Library
• http://www.wolhynien.de/ - family history in Volhynia, including an excellent research guide, FHL
film numbers for German speaking Lutheran parishes, and many other sources [mostly in
German]
• http://www.odessa3.org/collections/stpete/volhynia/ - links to indexed St. Petersburg Consistory
Evangelical church records of Volhynia
• http://www.mmhs.org/prussia/mmhsgen3.htm - Prussian Mennonite Genealogical Resources
RUSSIA
Germans were living in the Moscow area as early as the 15 th Century. Other early areas of German
settlement were Novgorod, Pskow, and Saint Petersburg. Most of these early settlers were integrated
into Russian society.
Catherine the Great first called for German settlers with the manifestos of 1762 and 1766. Among the
first groups who followed her invitation were Mennonites from West Prussia, who, as pacifists, valued
exemption from compulsory military service.